


A Timeless Reunion

by Zalphon



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls I: Arena, Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26747209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zalphon/pseuds/Zalphon





	A Timeless Reunion

**A Timeless Reunion**

The Fisherman had perched himself on a grey boulder that was flecked with black as he cast his rod out into the vastness of the Sea. He never felt more at peace than he did on mornings like this where the ocean fog was rolling in ever so slowly and the sun had yet to cast away the twin moons; it was just him and the sea which was just how he liked things. 

Time seemed to move slower when he was perched on this boulder or at least it felt like it did to him, but he didn’t complain about it. He didn’t complain about much anyways these days though. Used to. Used to quite a bit, but that was before he had seen a bit more of the world than he realized he wanted to and lived a bit more than he should’ve. Yep. He grew up a lot back in them days and that’s why he enjoyed being on this boulder so much alone with just him and the sea. It was quiet. It was peaceful. There was nobody there to interrupt his tired mind from just drifting out and letting go of all the stresses of the world, but he knew the day was coming soon when there was a certain somebody who would come and he just hoped today was not that day. He hoped everyday he sat on that boulder would not be that day though. 

As the sun poked up across the horizon and colored the skies a golden hue as it made its ascent, he looked at his catch so far. The catch was good today. A blue-finned barracuda, a couple of cod, and even a slaughterfish. He would eat good tonight and tomorrow night and even the next night after that and a satisfied smile spread across his wrinkled lips. The Fisherman threw his head back and a sigh escaped his lips. He thought happy thoughts as that sigh left him and he couldn’t help but look again at the fish he had caught. Life was good.

He pulled back his line for a moment as he reached into his pocket for his pipe and a pouch of Hackle-Lo. He didn’t smoke as he much as he used to. Bad for him, people would tell him, not that he used to care. He had bigger things to worry about back then. He was worried about things like Honor and Duty and Family and a lot of other words that don’t really have any meaning, because they’re so personal that they mean something a little to different to everyone who hears them. Yeah. Those were the days when he walked into a room and men jumped to their feet at attention until he called out, “At ease!” He didn’t miss those days. He thought he would when he was going through them, but he didn’t now. He just looked back at them and sighed a different kind of sigh than the one he had made just moments ago. This was a sad sigh. A melancholy one. 

He flicked a wooden match and with it came a tiny bit of flame that he shoved into loaded bowl of his pipe and slowly inhaled a deep breath of Hackle-Lo smoke. The smoke was thick and sticky which he exhaled through his nostrils. It had been too long since he allowed himself to indulge in Aged Hackle-Lo over the juvenile crap sold in every cornershop from here to Balmora, but he supposed that not indulging in the premium stuff all the time made it special on days like this when he did. It wasn’t a matter of money, no, certainly not money. There was just something about the thin, vapory smoke that he’d grown accustomed to over the years, after all, that’s what he started with way back when he didn’t even have hair on his chin (or much anywhere else for that matter). Times like this though, when there was a blissful emptiness to the world, he let his just drift freely and with the next deep breath of premium smoke, he drifted back to the days when he first started smoking.

He was young and had his whole life ahead of him. He knew it too and maybe that’s part of why he did all the stupid things he did. He didn’t have to walk the path he did, but he did it because he wanted to be something. More than that. He wanted to be somebody. He told himself that if he did this and that and that other thing too, then just maybe, just maybe, he--the kid from the South Side of Mournhold could’ve been more than just some punk kid. The Fisherman laughed a little before his laugh gave way to a nasty coughing fit only calmed by another lungful of the sticky-thick smoke. 

But he remembered what happened to that kid from the South Side of Mournhold. He remembered how that boy (and that’s what he was still at the time, despite his protests otherwise) tried to make something of himself. It was hard to forget given the scar across his back would still ache on those really cold days that would come by every once in a great while. He remembered how that boy told everyone he knew he was going to Vvardenfell to become an adventurer and get rich from plundering the old dwemer strongholds and pilfering the Daedric ruins as well while he was at it. It went real well too, up until he first managed to get into one and nearly got cleaved in two by one of those mechanical ball-things or whatever they were called. He didn’t know. He just knew it hurt like hell and the only reason he didn’t end up dead that day was that his body was pumping enough adrenaline that the only thing in the world he could think of that’d compare to that level of analgesic effect would be enough skooma to kill a Nix Ox. 

He laughed again, and then coughed again, and then lit another match and inhaled another mouthful of smoke again. This mouthful of smoke wasn’t as satisfying though. It was ashy, meaning that there wasn’t much left in the bowl and he needed to make a decision about whether he wanted some more or not, but he wasn’t ready to make that decision. No, he was busy taking a trip down memory lane and thinking about what that kid did next after realizing that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t meant to be some big damn hero. The Fisherman also remembered how that kid ended up being the worst damned printer’s apprentice in the world except for maybe that one s’wit whose name he couldn’t remember or any other day since he left that place nearly a century ago. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t there long anyways.

He remembered what that kid did next and how he decided he’d study magic under the Telvanni. The kid had a lot of things, but brains weren’t one of them. Nope, those took time to get and a lot of scars. A lot. The Fisherman went into another laughing-coughing fit thinking about his attempts to become a Telvanni Wizard-Lord though when he couldn’t even master (or really even cast) the most basic of basic spells. The Fisherman took another drag off the pipe but there was no sticky-thick smoke that came through, just the harsh taste of Hackle-Lo ash which prompted him to tap out the ashes onto his grey boulder flecked with black. 

He stared at the pouch for a long time. Debating. Did he want it now? Did he want to save it? It was a debate he had every time he smoked, especially good stuff like this, but he ultimately decided to shove the pouch back into his pocket and to throw the line back out into the water. He reckoned that was probably the best thing he could do anyways, because how many good days like this do you get where it’s just you and the open sea and not another soul for as far as you can see in any direction. 

The fish weren’t biting as much now though and the heat was starting to bother him, but he didn’t want to call it a day just yet. Nope. He decided to keep at it and it didn’t take long for the Fisherman to nod off into a nap atop his boulder only to be stirred awake by a kid who walked like his feet were fifty pounds each and who was bellyaching about how hot it was at volumes loud enough to scare all the fish off to the pretty little thing he was spending time with. Yep. He remembered her. Raynis Vels, a girl he used to get in a lot of trouble with when he was the kid who kid who was bellyaching’s age—or more accurately when he was the kid who was bellyaching. She didn’t stick around long after this talk because this was the talk that convinced him to start getting his life together and she was a free spirit. And by free spirit, a chaos junkie who got off on spontaneous stupidity, something he used to be really good at.

The Fisherman grumbled under his breath and tried to remember how that talk went. It had been a long time since he had it and he was on the other side of it when he did. He was racking his brain as the heavy-footed kid and Raynis got closer and closer before he finally just gave up entirely and hollered out to him. This actually felt pretty familiar. The old n’wah on the boulder yelling at him to come over. Yeah, that felt right. He remembered that. Yeah. That was exactly how it went down.

The three of them talked for hours, really it was just the Fisherman and the Kid who talked and Raynis skulked off on the side because for once she wasn’t the undivided center of attention to the Kid. That really got under her skin, but the Fisherman didn’t care too much about what Raynis liked and didn’t like because it wasn’t long after this talk that he never saw her again, well, until this talk and he knew he wouldn’t see her again after it given when he was the Kid’s age, he went looking for the Fisherman the next day after this talk and couldn’t find him anywhere and he did look everywhere (including trespassing in the Fisherman’s Shack) and still couldn’t find him. But it didn’t matter. The Fisherman knew this was his last night and as they talked from late afternoon well into the night, he couldn’t stop smiling at night’s end seeing the young man he used to be and knowing all the great he was going to do. Nope, he couldn’t stop smiling as he looked at the Kid by the time they all agreed to call it a night after having full bellies of grilled fish that he had caught that day. 

The Fisherman had dreaded this meeting for a long time. He was afraid to pass on. He knew the only reason he had lived this long was because he and the Kid still had to have their talk, but by the end of the night, he was glad. He was glad to have finally made his peace with the Gods and to have perched himself on this boulder knowing that sooner or later (and it was definitely later), the Kid would come. He had dreaded it for a long time, but as he closed his eyes and thought about this day—his last one on Nirn—he sighed one last time. A happy sigh. And as the last bit of breath escaped with the sigh, he was no more. The only thing left of him at the conclusion of that sigh was the pipe that he had found in the Fisherman’s Shack amongst his various belongings nearly a century ago and that the Kid would find in the morning and thus the Cycle would begin anew.


End file.
